Tennis Intelligence

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Tennis Intelligence

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Ultimate Tennis Statistics
The tennis game has always evolved through time, especially recently due to technological advancements. But what this evolution of the game is really about is hard to say, as there are no systematic data to show it. There are some reports on how court speed changed recently, but the data on which these reports were based was either targeting a specific tournament or was not including enough matches to get out of statistical margin errors.
But now, Ultimate Tennis Statistics with its Statistics Timeline tries to answer this question by presenting full aggregated in-match statistics data (for all players combined, grouped by season) since it started to be recorded in 1991.

https://www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com/blog?post=gameEvolution

foobarbaz · Strong Club Player

The Ultimate Tennis Statistics are interesting, the couple of year on year trends I picked out were :

- the increased emphasis on first serve
- the increased duration of matches, sets, games, and points (though there is a question whether this is partly down to players taking longer before serving)

The big change in tennis is the way players have bulked up, they are now built like Stretch Armstrong! This is a change that has been mirrored in other sports. In rugby, for example, there used to be space for the slight of build, mercurial player. Now the super-fit players block every part of the line, and the game has changed accordingly with kicks, and tactics deciding the result. The pitch size hasn't changed, and the players are pushed to their physical limits, for a game which I think has become less appealing.

Tennis has changed too, the court is the same size, but the players are so fast and have heavier ball striking. It seems to me that for younger players to get to the top of the game, building the physique is equally as important as acquiring the match play skills. It's not surprising that players are struggling with a constant rate of injury. Then there are the established players, at the top of the game, who have years of training and competition in the bank. It's no wonder that these players are carrying on until their mid-30s.

The spectre of drug-taking by youngsters in state-sponsored programmes to reduce the bulking-up period is there as an undercurrent theme. And even legal fitness programmes place so much emphasis on nutrition and supplements.

I'm not sure professional tennis is moving in the right direction, as neither the match rules, nor the player ranking scheme, have changed significantly during the last couple of decades.

Personally, I'd like to see big change in the game, with the youngsters given more breathing space. I think there is easily room for an age-based grouping of professional players, with equal rewards and emphasis. The game should be given back to the youngsters, is my view.